Testing the new Porsche 911 fleet

A day spent driving the latest range of Porsche 911s is fun. Seeing how they drift on a wet track, even more so

The ultimate schoolboy fantasy: An unsupervised cruise in a Porsche down a highway with no speed limit.

“Oi! You see that sign for the 100-kilometre zone?” quips my British co-pilot Tim, in a voice you might mistake for Ricky Gervais’ brother, a face you might mistake for Ricky Gervais. “I think it just ended, mate. Bang it.”

I accelerate to a lazy 120kph, easing our biohazard yellow Porsche around a transport truck as easy as a head rolling off a pillow. This 911 Turbo’s a convertible, but these monsoon rain conditions have stowed away on my Lufthansa flight, all the way from Bombay to the verdant heart of the Rhineland.

“We never haff such weather zis time of year,” said a German test-driver named George, during a lunch break between laps at the recently opened Aldenhoven test track. “You’re welcome,” I’d said, struggling to keep down a bottle of apple-flavoured sparkling water. As much as I thought throwing up after rallying all those tight curves in a cherry red GTS would make for good copy, I didn’t want to look like a pussy in front of all these real drivers.

Tim’s got that rising-triplet Ricky Gervais cackle too – ha-Ha- HA! – most appropriate for a day spent destroying the resale value of some of the fastest production cars on earth; because nothing makes two grown men cackle like pubeless schoolboys than an unsupervised cruise in a Porsche worth more than a crore, down a highway with no speed limit.

And what would bring out a man’s innate prurience more than driving a yellow Porsche 911 Turbo down the autobahn, feeling as carefree as a pubeless schoolboy?

140. “Mate, did you see that? We just passed a town called Titz.” Tim reaches into his bag for his SLR. “Let’s go back and get a photo.” “Nah,” I say, “town was a bit too small for my taste.” “I did a rally in Austria last year,” laughs Tim, “and there was this town called Wank.” [“ha-Ha-HA!”]

150. This morning, before any of the gathered journalists began testing this year’s crop of 911s for their take-off speed, cornering or braking back at the Aldenhoven track, the company spokesman had given us a briefing, insisting that “if you race your Porsche responsibly on the track, you will be more responsible with it on the roads.”

160. Are you humming Wagner? I’m humming Wagner.

170. This is my favourite number from our day at the track, because this new breed of water-cooled horses come saddled with this thing called launch control. From your starting-line idle, make sure you’re in “sport plus” mode, touch your left foot to the brake, slam the accelerator and the right dash display window will flash “launch control enabled”, at which microsecond you will take your left foot off the brake and, like, launch.

In the top models of the new 911 series, there is a seat adjustment that brings the outer sections closer to your hips, to strap you in. They have a setting to measure accrued g-forces, for godsake. When you hit the magic 170kph after your launch, it’s not a matter of your brain hitting the back of your skull; it’s a matter of the muscles above your knees peeling away from your femurs.

180. My dad, a rally-car enthusiast who used to take our family station wagon two wheels up on to the sidewalk and do donuts in the fresh snow of suburban parking lots to make his 10-year-old son laugh, once gave me a poster of a Porsche 911. To me, it was as certain special blankets and natty stuffed toys were to other kids.

I used to draw the car’s sleek likeness in coloured pencil and fantasize about driving one at 200kph on one of those highways with no speed limits. “One day, I’ll take you driving on one of those autobahns,” my old man used to say. I just beat him to it.

I’m sure he would have enjoyed riding shotgun in the 911 Targa as I spun donuts on the slick back end of the slalom track, my GPS spinning like the sidewalk after a hard night of Schnapps and Weissbier. The pros tell me this is called “the drift”, which is “not losing control”, it’s restoring equilibrium. I intuit this as truth. Or maybe I played far too much MarioKart 64 growing up.

190. With the GPS scrolling smoothly as I smoke down the autobahn, I notice the town of Duisburg at the top of the widescreen map, the place where my paternal ancestry can be traced to the 14th century. Fancy that.

198. Two clicks away. This one’s for y-yo-you, you cretin! You! Driving the Opel. Only a jealous fool purposely flouting German lane etiquette would overtake a tractor in that hatchback piece of shit and keep me from crossing my fated autobahn 200 to honour my father and our European family legacy. How dare you. The 3.8-liter engine concurs, belching high-octane assent out its double exhaust as the speedo dejects, quickly, counterclockwise to 150.

140. 130. This is bullshit.

120. 110. We slug into Düsseldorf at less than 100kph, and right off a highway ramp we’re into a traffic cop’s tripod speed gun, aimed straight at our gnarly horse logo. Thankfully, the would-be ticketer had already pulled over a Volvo station wagon, and we cruise by. “I bet that cop thought this yellow Porsche was going to fill his month’s quota,” laughs Tim. “ha-Ha-HA!”

A victory for sportscar drivers everywhere. A consolation for not having been able to make the 65km drive with the top down. Still, when I strike it rich, I know exactly what kind of day out I’ll organize for my old man’s birthday. Just that it’ll be a rocket drive to Duisburg, not Düsseldorf.

What you’ll want to drive

911 Turbo

The most all-round excellent car you are ever going to sit in: launch control and racing seats mere inches from the ground, yet plush enough to cruise through town in a tux. The definite winner of the day.

911 GTS

More for serious track rats than casual speed demons, pop it into “sport plus” mode, launch and try to outsmart the car’s stability system on a tight corner. You won’t be able to.

911 Targa

Only after driving the GTS and the Turbo would a 911 Targa be disappointing. And it was too rainy to take the roof down on this one, too. A+ for the sound system’s subwoofers though.

918 Spyder

Only 918 of these hybrid monsters exist, and explaining the controls is far too complicated for a stat box. Suffice it to say, James Dean would still be alive if he’d been in one of these.